School is out, it’s hot outside and the siren song of the latest online video game releases is calling gamers of all ages—but not everyone online is there to play. Some predators use online games and social platforms to target and extort their victims.
We spoke with Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan, chief scientist at Aura, a digital security suite designed with the ability to help families protect sensitive information and privacy online, to learn how to best protect children as they dive into gaming this summer. Ramzan helped create some of the earliest machine learning models to detect threats online and has been at the cutting edge of cyber security for nearly 30 years.
Know the Risks
One risk parents should look out for in online gaming is social engineering, which is like hacking but for humans, according to Ramzan.
With social engineering, online scammers and predators use manipulation tactics to get children into a heightened emotional state, Ramzan says. That could mean making the child afraid or excited, or creating a sense of urgency so that they stop reasoning like they normally would.
One of the most common forms of social engineering is phishing.
Phishing involves a person or group of people sending messages or emails claiming to be someone their recipient knows or someone from a reputable company. These scammers try to convince you to reveal personal information—like a password or credit card number. In gaming spaces, this can look like someone with a misleading name claiming to work for the game’s publisher.
This fake publisher may threaten gamers with action against their account, like a ban, or promise a reward like in-game currency or exclusive items or cosmetics, despite having no authority to do so.
One common ruse in recent years is for a scammer to use a compromised account—one they stole with a similar scam—to reach out to the friends of the person with the stolen account. The message from the scammer might say that the friend accidentally reported your child’s account, so your child might be banned.
A second account, also operated by the scammer, would then pose as a company employee who would try to obtain financial or personal information to “resolve” the false report. This scam has been reported on platforms like Discord, Steam and Instagram, but it can happen anywhere.
Resources for Parents
Knowing about risks and resources can be half the battle. By talking to children and staying informed, parents can ensure kids can have a safe, fun experience online.
One resource is Project iGuardian, an outreach effort by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dedicated to informing and educating parents and their children about internet safety.
The project is the official in-person educational arm of the Know2Protect campaign, a broader awareness campaign dedicated to preventing and combatting online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Another resource is the FBI Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge, a free educational program for children that teaches cyber safety in a fun way. SOS is designed for students in third through eighth grades and covers cyberbullying, passwords, malware, social media and more. Use it by visiting sos.fbi.gov and selecting your child’s grade level. The Spanish version of the site is expected to relaunch in 2024.
To stay in the know, Ramzan says, parental controls are a must.
“I would encourage every parent to instate some form of parental control capabilities to at least know what’s going on in the environment and be able to turn the internet off at the right time to be able to control what’s happening,” says Ramzan, who is also a parent himself.
He says parental controls like the ones he helps develop at Aura allow parents to prevent their children from accessing harmful sites, manage how much time their kids spend online or on certain apps and monitor conversations for cyberbullying or predatory behavior.
Ramzan adds that not being judgmental when your children make a mistake online is important for keeping communication open.
While kids learn a bit about digital safety at school, parents need to keep that conversation going in the home. Children need to know why digital safety is important, and they need to know that they can come to their parents for help.
Debunking 4 Myths About Summer Safety for Kids >>
